Usual careers in League of Legends last only a few years. Staying at the very top level competitively and managing to lead your entire team to qualify every season is as big a challenge as it seems, especially since the game's landscape has evolved significantly over the years. But there are exceptions. Some players have consistently enhanced their legend over the time by qualifying for the World Championship. To this day, the GOAT Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok has the most appearances at Worlds, with nine participations. Kim "Deft" Hyuk-kyu, Yiliang "Doublelift" Peng, Li "Xiaohu" Yuanhao, Huang "Maple" Yi-tang, Jeong "Impact" Eon-young, Jo "CoreJJ" Yong-in and Nicolaj "Jensen" Jensen come right after, with eight each.

Faker v Deft, historical rivalry

Faker is a player who needs no introduction. Having started his professional career in 2013 with SKT Telecom T1, he has since won ten LCK titles, two MSI, and five World Championships with them. He has won each of these titles by systematically surrounding himself with different players, except for the years 2023-2024 when T1 retained their roster and won two world titles back-to-back. He has logically qualified for the Worlds nine times and has consistently reached at least the semifinals. He is simply the most dominant player of the competition and the most consistent player of all time.

Deft is the other LCK player appearing in this standings. On his side, he achieved it within six different teams: Samsung Blue, EDward Gaming, KT Rolster, DRX, Hanwha LifeEsports and Dplus KIA. He won Worlds only once in 2022 with DRX while accomplishing one of the most amazing miracle run of all time on his 7th apparition in the tournament and after loosing five times in a row in quarters. In the Grand Final, DRX and Deft defeated Faker, the AD Carry's rival since they started to compete. Their rivalry was the main topic of the 2023 Worlds Anthem: GODS.

CoreJJ and Impact each earned a Worlds title during their LCK years: Impact with SKT T1 in 2013 and CoreJJ with Samsung Galaxy in 2017. CoreJJ had also reached the final a year prior, where his team fell to SKT T1 (2-3), only to claim victory the following year (3-0). Both players later moved to North America and reunited intermittently at Team Liquid from 2019 onward, where CoreJJ has played continuously for five years. Together, they secured three LCS titles and participated in three Worlds, most recently in 2024.

Year after year

Xiaohu is the most capped Chinese player in Worlds history, first competing in 2016 with Royal Never Give Up, where he remained until late 2022. Since his debut, the midlaner has only missed one Worlds, in 2020, the year he switched to toplane. Despite eight appearances and three MSI titles, he has never captured the Worlds title. His closest opportunity came in 2023 with Weibo Gaming, but the LPL team was decisively defeated by T1 in one of the most lackluster finals in Worlds history.

Maple has been the top player in the Pacific region for several years. His eight Worlds appearances are partly due to his region’s lower level of competition compared to the major leagues (LCK, LPL, LCS, LEC), making qualification more accessible. His stints in those leagues—first in the LPL with Suning and LNG in 2019-2020, then in the LCS with TSM in 2022—are, in fact, the only seasons (along with 2014) where he failed to qualify. This limitation has kept Maple from truly competing for the ultimate title, although he reached the quarterfinals twice, in 2013 with Gamania Bears and in 2015 with Flash Wolves.

The record of Jensen

Doublelift has been the first of the four to appear eight times at Worlds. Starting his career in the very early days of League of Legends pro-play, he's been playing during the Season 1 World Championship in 2011 that occurred in Dreamhack and ended fourth with Epik Gamer. He is no doubt a local legend in North America, as he has been winning eight LCS titles between 2015 and 2020 with Counter Logic Gaming, TeamSoloMid and Team Liquid. He made at least one appearance at Worlds with each of these teams but yet never managed to get past group stage.

Even though he started his career in Europe, Jensen is now one of the longest-serving players in the NA region. He joined Cloud9 in 2015 and has consistently qualified for Worlds from that year until 2022. He is the only player who managed to qualify for Worlds eight consecutive years. He's done it five times with C9 and three times with Team Liquid, including once alongside Doublelift in 2019.